Ode to Smoked Brisket and Slabs of Ribs

Of all our annual Thanksgiving traditions, I think my favorite is the smoked brisket and ribs that are lovingly prepared by my All Star, King of the BBQ husband, Golfer Pro (blog MO).  He has this big, bad ole smoker made out of a hot water heater (of course) out back.  Doesn’t everyone?  On Thanksgiving Eve, he builds a fire at one end of this water heater…turned BBQ grill in a ritual that likens unto a tribal pre-battle war dance.  If you listen closely, you can hear the “Requiem to a Heavyweight” being hummed by the deer in the orchard.  Coyotes circle close by, waiting to sneak in during the brief intervals of napping throughout the night vigil to lick the drippings below and the dogs think that the party atmosphere is all about them.

Night before last, with that great full moon being traversed by occasional clouds, anticipating a cold front, we sat on the swing out on our brick patio.  The dogs love to sit on the swing and they love the back and forth swaying motion, the peaceful, easy conversation between long time lovers, the smell of the smoker settling in for a long night of contributing the magnificent flavor to the hunks of meat within it’s belly and they generally just love the attention of sitting between their owners.  What can I say?  I love all that too.

Since the fire is lit and the smoker is big, our thinking is that we might as well cook tons of meat and not waste a good fire.  All the kids love to take home leftovers and every single rib and slice of brisket eventually is eaten by someone.

Normally, my husband uses a rub on the meat.  Below is his recipe.  However this year, he did something different to avoid using the brown sugar.  He thought it might be a good change and after all, isn’t watching sugar intake important on Thanksgiving…ha….(Well, for him it is), so, he jumped out there and just chose a couple of interesting looking marinades.  Claudia’s BBQ Brisket Marinade and KC Masterpiece Spicy Mango Marinade.  I am not sure we can tell a huge difference in taste this year.  If we had meat with the rub and this year’s marinades side by side, I am sure we could.  All I can say is that they were and are delicious.

First it takes a couple of hours to get the fire just right.  You want your coals to look like this.

To test this by touch, you should be able to put your hand on the closed smoker for no more than 3 seconds before it gets uncomfortable but if you can keep it on a bunch longer, it isn’t hot enough.  He often puts hickory on the grill to add extra flavor and this year was no exception.

Here is his rub recipe:

RUB FOR SMOKED BRISKET AND/OR PORK RIBS

3 parts brown sugar
1/1/2 parts salt
1/3 part onion salt, garlic salt, paprika, chili powder
1/6 part Cajun seasoning like Tony Chacheres

Mix all that together with your hands and rub all over your meat.

Spread the meat on the grill in a single layer (if possible).  Where it overlaps, it won’t get as brown.

Here are the results of the all night smoker session.  You can see on the left where the ribs were overlapping.  These were cooked uncovered for about 5 or 6 hours and then wrapped in heavy foil for the duration of the night.  They were left on the grill with dying embers until morning and then placed in an empty ice chest to stay warm.  They were still warm at lunch time which was 2 PM.  Yum!

Hope you had an awesome Thanksgiving with family and friends.  We didn’t have our children and grandchildren this year but we still had  house full.  At the end of the day, right before we left, we had a pop-in by my oldest daughter and her family.  I am so thankful for all my family.  They are such blessings and bring great joy to my life.

I am joining today with my good blogger friends over at Jenny Matlock’s Alphabet Thursday.  Check it out for some great Thanksgiving stories.

I am also joining some other blog parties.